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OPERATION
MONTSERRAT
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Inspiration Challenge Competition Brings
Classroom $1000 |
Best Implementation Award
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Twenty-five of Danielle Hartkern's students at Central Park Middle
School enjoyed an exciting lesson about natural disasters,
emergency response, and organization as well as the importance
of math and science for planning, preparing and responding. It
began when the class was presented with a natural disaster
scenario and it was their responsibility to form response teams
and work with mission control to save lives. Mission Control
was based at the Challenger Learning Center in Wheeling, W. Va.
The students
were assigned to e-mission: Operation Montserrat.
The
scenario:
A volcano
erupted on the small Caribbean island of Montserrat, endangering
the lives of its 13,000 inhabitants.
To make the
situation worse, a hurricane is fast approaching.
Can anything
be done to save the island and the people who live there?
The Central
Park Middle School Library was converted into emergency response
headquarters.
The students
broke into emergency response teams and began their tasks by
assessing the biosphere, lithosphere, atmosphere and hydrosphere
of the island. They used the knowledge of the classroom lessons
from the previous month on volcanoes and predicting danger in
natural disasters. They had been studying the real-life
eruption of Mt. Pinatubo and Mt. St. Helen as well as the data
from Hurricanes George and Katrina.
They
approached Operation Montserrat as if it was “real.”
During the
two-hour program, the students linked via videoconference and the Internet with
Mission Control, based at the Challenger Learning Center in
Wheeling, W. Va. They tracked activity, mapped movement and
recorded data.
The students
were intense throughout the program. They expressed excitement
and enthusiasm with each movement and every communication with
Mission Control. They not only learned the importance of, but
they utilized skills, such as teamwork, communication,
problem-solving and critical thinking.
The
Challenger Learning Center is one of the several centers created
to commemorate the Challenger Space Shuttle mission. The
Central Park NASA Explorer School had an experiment aboard the
spacecraft before it ceased. In 2004, Central Park Middle School held
a dedication ceremony and planted the Columbia Memorial Garden
in Schenectady’s Central Park.
FALL 2005
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